hills fartlek

Well, the rest of the week has been busy but not with running. I made it out for a hills workout on Thursday, an easy 40 minute fartlek where the base pace was slow and I sped up a little every time I came to an uphill. For anyone that is wondering: yes, 'fartlek' IS the most hilarious word in the running vernacular and I use it as often as possible. Aside from that, it apparently comes from the Swedish for "speed play". Personally, I think that someone with a sense of humor must have checked the word for "speed play" in several languages before choosing the best one.

When you do a fartlek, you choose some pace that's not too fast and then do short bursts of effort throughout the run. A fartlek can be easy or hard, depending on how often and intense you work during the bursts of energy. I did the bursts on hills because I'm trying to avoid "bonking" on that hill at mile 22 in Seattle ('bonk': the second most hilarious running word; to hit empty at the end of a long run). But, they were light bursts so the run was easy overall.

Friday was Halloween, an excellent time but that's another story. I did manage to get to the rec center for about an hour and sqeezed in a few soccer games, but nothing like the usual Friday endurance soccer session where we show up at 6 and stay until our legs stop moving or 10 o'clock, whichever comes first.

Tomorrow is a step back in mileage for the long run, 11-12 miles. I'm planning to include the hilliest area I know of, 5 miles or so of dirt farm road through the wheat fields. Next week is the last week when the workouts will give me any benefit during the marathon; after that, if I do anything too hard I'll just be making myself tired. So I'll try to really go strong for this next week and then gradually ease up and cruise the last three until November 30.